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Jazz Experience

Jazz & Teamwork: The Jazz Experience with Live Jazz Band
Video of Jazz &amp; Teamwork: The Jazz Experience with Live Jazz Band

Teamwork and Creativity

The Jazz Experience is an interactive 90-minute event that explores teamwork, creativity and flexibility through the metaphor of jazz.

The session begins with a performance of a familiar song by a live jazz band, giving the participants an opportunity to listen and observe how the players improvise, experiment, build on each other's ideas and embrace a culture that engenders a rich flow of creative ideas.

This is followed by a series of carefully crafted exercises that facilitate an interactive discussion about jazz as a metaphor for the new work environment. A jazz mindset provides an excellent model for today's corporate player.

CASE STUDY... London Business School

In 2010-11 London Business School engaged Music & Management to provide a series of jazz events for their Senior Executive Development Program. It focused on the special skills required to be a successful jazz musician - flexibility, speed of response, improvising within minimal structures, alternating between 'soloing' and 'supporting' roles, accommodating of errors and rotating leadership.

"The jazz vision is dead right for today’s organizations. Compelling, engaging and applicable to creative business, Dominic Alldis is a master of management insight through music..." Professor Nigel Nicholson, London Business School

Related case studies:

An important part of the Leadership Development Centre was to stretch our managers thinking about leadership using music as a metaphor. An important result was that our managers began to shift their mindset, seeing leadership through a jazz lens, as improvisation, collaboration and flexibility, not just through a traditional orchestral lens, as "conducting" a team...

Mark Jenner

Talent Organisation & Development Director

Barclays Bank

Barclays Bank is the world's seventh largest bank and headquartered in London.

As part of their 2014 leadership development program they invited a select group of senior executives to attend a lunchtime jazz concert by the Dominic Alldis Trio. This was followed by an interactive discussion and workshop about jazz and innovation, embracing change, accommodating risk, building trust and shared responsibility.

To be innovative, managers - like jazz musicians - must interpret vague clues, face unstructured tasks, deal with incomplete knowledge, and yet they must act anyway. Managers, like jazz players, must engage in dialogue and negotiation, creating shared spaces for decision-making based on expertise rather than on the hierarchical position ...

Frank Barrett PhD

Human and Organizational Development Program at Fielding Institute

Accenture is a global consulting and professional services firm that provides strategy, digital, technology and operations services. Their clients include 95 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than three quarters of the Fortune Global 500.

In 2009, Dominic Alldis of Music & Management was invited to deliver a presentation about jazz and innovation for the Accenture Senior Leadership Development Programme in Lausanne in conjunction with the Institute of Management Development (IMD). The session included three jazz professional musicians from Geneva.

Dominic Alldis was the motivational highlight at our European Consulting Conference with about 900 participants in Madrid this year. His message conveyed the importance both as a conductor and as a manager, using soft skills to reach common success. His performance was elegant and he showed sheer mastery in creating the music very slowly and thereby building up the tension more effectively. With his work as a musician he demonstrated highest professionalism and excellence. In fact Mr. Alldis received a standing ovation for his performance. Moreover it was exceptionally pleasant to work with Mr. Alldis. I would highly recommend him for similar events...

Christian Wilmschoefer

Vice President

Siemens Industry Software

Siemens AG is Europe's largest engineering firm.

Conductor and jazz musician Dominic Alldis was the keynote speaker at the Mining Division Annual Conference in Berlin 2014, the Siemens Industry Software in Madrid 2014 and the Siemens Resellers Conference in Barcelona in 2015. In each event he talked about leadership, collaboration and building trust within an orchestra, as well as improvisation and change within the world of jazz.

The musical evening by Music & Management is a real magical event. The beauty of it is how we learn the power of storytelling, how to put together a team of stars and with a few hints generate real teamwork, how to allow teams to alternate leadership at different moments, how to listen for the clues given to you by other team members. All of this is done in a very professional way. Dominic Alldis is not only a talented musician, but his empathy and connection to the audience allowed us to learn lessons from a very different professional field. Feedback from the attendees was simply spectacular and it was an evening nobody will forget. It is a privilege to be associated with you Dominic and we hope to continue working together in the years to come...

Luis Hernán Cubillos

Partner

Egon Zehender

Egon Zehnder is one of the world's top five top global executive search firms, offering services and expertise in the fields of Executive Search, Board Consulting and Leadership Strategy Services.

For their 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 Partners Meetings they engaged Music & Management to provide the Fusion Experience at the Museé Jacquemart André in Paris. Each session comprised a performance and subsequent improvisation on the music of a famous composer (Ravel, Satie and Chopin...). This was followed by a group discussion about storytelling, legacy and creativity in both music and business.